A wide-angle view of a still image taken by a camera captures a large space. In one case, the image is captured at low optical magnification indices to capture as much of the three dimensional real space as possible. In another case, the image is captured using higher optical magnification indices, but the image does not capture as much of the three dimensional real space. Selecting one magnification over the other when capturing the image presents drawbacks. For example, while the wide-angle view captures more of the image, some drawbacks appear when trying to zoom in on the image due to pixilation. Also, when selecting a larger magnified view for the captured image, a drawback appears when trying to zoom out on the image due to a lack of information.
In one case, if a user were to digitally zoom in on a portion of the still image, the resulting magnified view may be pixilated due to the fact that a digital zoom process does not capture any additional detail than the maximum optical zoom used to capture the original image. Instead, when zooming in to the portion of the still image, interpolation is used to make a portion of the image larger by adding extra pixels. Interpolation still cannot replace the actual image data and results in a pixilated view upon magnification.
In another case, the still image could be taken under greater magnification index. However, outlying regions of the three dimensional real space are not captured when the original image is taken with greater magnification. As such, once the image is captured, details that were never captured cannot thereafter be recreated, even when using photo editing software. That is, the user can only zoom out on the originally captured still image to a lesser magnification.
As a result, the user is left with making a choice between capturing a still image captured with a low magnification index and living with pixilation when zooming in to a greater magnification, or capturing an image initially with a higher magnification index but leaving out some part of the three dimensional real space.